Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodríguez signed 10 bilateral agreements with Suriname during an official visit to Paramaribo on September 11, including a 2026-2027 roadmap for cooperation in the hydrocarbon sector, according to Orinoco Tribune, which reported that Rodríguez concluded the visit having signed agreements covering fishing, energy, food production, transportation, tourism and education.

The package included two agreements, four letters of intent, three cooperation frameworks and one joint declaration, according to Suriname’s President Jennifer Geerlings-Simons. Suriname’s Foreign Affairs Minister Melvin Bouva confirmed that talks between the two governments covered cooperation in the field of oil, gas and hydrocarbons, though the detailed content of the texts was not fully disclosed at the time of signing, according to energynews.pro.

Rodríguez travelled to Suriname at the invitation of Geerlings-Simons, with the visit framed around roughly 50 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries, first established in 1975, according to Orinoco Tribune. Both leaders met at the Presidential Palace in Paramaribo, where Rodríguez also laid a floral tribute at a bust of Simón Bolívar before the delegations sat down for bilateral talks.

The hydrocarbon roadmap is intended to open the door to joint training, research and technical assistance between the two countries’ energy sectors, according to teleSUR English. For Suriname, the arrangement offers access to Venezuela’s decades of experience in oil production as it works to bring its own offshore discoveries into production. For Venezuela, deeper ties with Paramaribo extend its reach into a neighbouring country now building out a hydrocarbon industry of its own, the outlet reported.

The agreement comes as Suriname’s Block 58 development, known as GranMorgu, continues to advance offshore. TotalEnergies has put GranMorgu’s recoverable resources above 750 million barrels, with first production targeted for 2028, according to energynews.pro. That project, alongside Guyana’s Exxon-led Stabroek development next door, has made the Guyana-Suriname basin one of the most closely watched new deepwater oil provinces in the world.

Paramaribo was the fifth stop on a wider diplomatic tour by Rodríguez, who has also visited Grenada, Barbados, the Netherlands and India in recent weeks, according to the Rio Times. It was the first of those stops where a host government raised a legal claim against Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA directly in bilateral talks, the outlet reported, though further detail on that claim was not disclosed.